| abstract | - The 1965 Italian Grand Prix, officially known as the XXXVI Gran Premio d'Italia, was the eighth round of the 1965 FIA Formula One World Championship, staged at the Monza circuit on the 12th of September. The race served as a prime example of the power of slipstream, with a race long battle for the leading involving four different drivers. Freshly re-crowned World Champion Jim Clark arrived in Monza looking to take a seventh win of the season to match his record from 1963. The Scot duly set pole on the Monza road course, sharing the front row with Ferrari leader John Surtees and impressive rookie Jackie Stewart of BRM. A strong start for Clark and Stewart saw the launch into the lead of the race in front of Graham Hill and Lorenzo Bandini, while Surtees plummeted. Before the end of the opening lap, Hill broke away from Bandini and joined Clark and Stewart in a slipstreaming battle for the lead, which saw no-one lead for more than a couple of laps. Surtees soon recovered to make the lead trio a quartet, although the Englishman would only lead for a lap before his Ferrari destroyed the remains of its clutch. Still the lead battle continued, with the two BRMs still battling with Clark's Lotus, until the World Champion dropped out a few laps from the end with a fuel pump failure. Hill managed to get ahead of Stewart consistently until the penultimate lap, when a huge slide through Parabolica allowed the rookie Stewart to slip through and take a maiden Grand Prix victory.
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